An improvement based view on relationships

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This post was written by Irene Morales

This Post Covers

🖤 Fear of love
❤️‍🔥 Eternal love
💔 Falling out of love
❤️‍🩹 Seeking improvement
❤️ My approach
🤍 Final thoughts
🔗 Interesting sources

Fear of love

Alright so I’m guessing everyone has been scared of love at a certain point of their life. Maybe because they got their heart broken, maybe because of family trauma, maybe because you just don’t like the idea of love nowadays.
For me this has been a constant fear for the past two years. I used to dream of having a person that loved me in the same way I loved them, having THAT person that cared for you, that admired you, that was there for you and only you in that specific way. However I slowly started to separate myself from that idea to the point of not believing it existed. I started to think that love didn’t exist at all, which is completely absurd. And this was a big thing to say giving the fact that I myself hadn’t been in a relationship. Nonetheless my environment didn’t prove me wrong, i could see my friend's relationships full of problems, my parents and even my grandparents who I’ve always thought were in love now didn’t look so in love.
This ideology of love not existing didn’t last long because the reality is that humans do love. Some say love is a biological construct we’re all born with, others say that love is a social construct designed by the media. What we know for a fact is that the feeling of love is real and what it produces in our brains is real as well.

Eternal love

So now what do i think? I think love exists, passionate, intense true love, like the one you read in books. However i don’t think it lasts, at least not with the way most people approach it, and THAT I think is the scariest part of love. Why do so many relationship fail if they start loving each other that much? Why do couples grow apart? I have a theory and it’s based on nonconformity and the seek of constant improvement.

Falling out of love

I’m sure we’ve all heard of the honeymoon phase, this is the period in which relationships are at its peak. The couple wants to spend every moment together, they rarely fight, their sexual life is very active, everything is just blissful and carefree. And that’s it, it’s CARE-FREE, everything just comes naturally, you feel like saying nice things, sharing every thought, discussing the future…
However, there comes a point where this amazing communication just stops. This phase that i was talking about lasts about two years. And then come the problems. After some years of being committed to someone, real life sets in. Work, money, friendships, the future… With this amount of love comes a great amount of fear of losing the other person. This doesn’t have to be a problem if there’s trust, the thing is during the next stages of relationships, this starts to diminish. Mostly because of external things that lead to bad communication, because the difference is all these things just don’t come as naturally anymore. Most problems emerge because of this lack of communication. It could be failure to express their love for each other and how they value one another resulting in self doubt and insecurity, it could also be that they’re not sharing their personal problems which could lead to frustration for the one carrying everything on their own and a feeling of coldness and lack of trust in the relationship, maybe it’s that they’re not talking about what they want for the future and their goals leading to future disagreements. And they’re many more examples i could list of why communication is KEY.

Seeking improvement

So now that we’ve established that the key to a lasting relationship is communication, why don’t people just communicate with each other. Doesn’t everyone obsess with improving? If you’re reading this you most likely do ;) The thing is so many people don’t like working on themselves, that would firstly mean admitting that some of their traits aren’t that good, or that some problems might actually be because of them. this would also mean that they have to focus on negative aspects as well as the good ones obviously, but truthfully denial is the easiest form of self protection and some people translate that into their relationships.
Another big problem is that people seek improvement and change in themselves without taking into account they are now a pair and that if they change either themselves or their opinions, values and ideas; this affects the person they are with.

My approach

If I were in a relationship I would have these weekly sessions in which me and my partner would discuss current feelings, any external problems I want to liberate myself from, short-term goals, what we need from each other at the moment, things I feel my partner could do better, things I value from them, and vice-versa. I would basically force myself to open up frequently, this way we’ll both know were we’re at, what we need from each other, and we’ll both feel appreciated. You will both grow in the relationship and you will feel supported to grow on your own as well. This might sound too artificial and/or useless but the same way we take care of our bodies, our pets, our minds, we should also take care of our relationships, and having a set routine of open communication could prevent so many problems up ahead. This self-improvement approach we have, should reflect all areas of our lives.

Final thoughts

So in conclusion, I would say, if self improvement is a priority in your life then transfer that into your relationships, don't try and progress by yourself, progress both in parallel and on the same line, remember why you chose this person to spend the rest of your life with and be excited in the people you can become together.